| LearnJazzPiano.com archives: How to make a good solo | |
| Scot -- 07/04/2005, 10:11:57 -- #16125 | |
| This question comes up all the time and just the other day as I helped a student out I visualized something that turned her soloing around. Immediately. So it goes like this. When you are soloing or playing a tune in general, you are supposed to take a melodic, harmonic, or rhythmic idea, a theme or motif, and use it as you create variations and interesting sounds and rhythms. This is sort of what composition is all about. What happens, though, and especially on the piano since it's such a mechanical instrument is that we don't stick with an idea long enough. We get jumpy, start playing a bunch of notes that don't mean anything, and totally forget to work ideas and make something meaningful out of our improv instead of just spitting notes out. Here's a way to completely change that RIGHT NOW. When you are playing, look at your musical ideas like a car going down the street. If you are at a car race, you can't see the cars as they whip around the track. Just a noisy blur, maybe some color, but no detail and certainly apart from the noise, not very interesting. However, if you're at a parade, then what? Each float comes down the street nice and slow. As an observer, you get a chance to see all the details, look at all the people waving to you, even catch bits of candy and stuff that they throw at you. In fact, by the time the float has gone by, you are ready for the next one, the next great float experience. As a player, you want your audience to understand what you are trying to play, so you've got to make your musical ideas go slowly so that your audience has enough time to get into the details and catch some candy. Then it's time for your next idea and now the audience is ready for it. There is only one thing that makes a composition good- does it connect with the general audience? If you're the only person that likes it, then you're either way ahead of or behind the times and you won't be a making a living writing/playing that kind of music. So the bottom line is that pacing your musical ideas is very important. If you go too fast from one idea to the next, no one gets a chance to figure out what your idea was supposed to be. If you go way too slow, which is better anyway, instead of confusing your audience you will bore them. Thinking about a musical idea like a parade float and keeping that idea in your mind when you are playing and practicing will immediately make your solos mean more. Try it, you'll like it. | |
| bavern -- 07/04/2005, 12:48:02 -- #16127 | |
| interesting. Got me to think another way. Thanks | |
| marksdg -- 07/05/2005, 06:17:45 -- #16146 | |
| Scot, Very good advice. This is one of those things you think you know, but now that you mention it I realize I probably leap about a bit too much. You want to impress people with your variety of ideas, but that ends up saying nothing. It is like listening to a speach where someone has too many ideas they want to get across. In graduate school my professor said something: "If your audience goes away from your talk understanding just one point you were trying to make, you have accomplished more than most speakers." I think this is similar. | |
| SolArt -- 07/05/2005, 08:14:39 -- #16149 | |
| Good visualization Scot- parade versus race. "See this colorful, eye catching, pleasing float? Here, eat this candy (motif, etc)- ready for more, now try this one! Tasty eh?" Also I think a point to keep in mind is to not make our solos too predictable, we need to throw in that element of surprise to keep the listener's attention, or else they stop fully listening. Plus we may even surprise & please ourselves in the process. | |
| Styles -- 07/05/2005, 13:43:28 -- #16162 | |
| Nice visualization I can attest to this being a semi bebopper. I can play a bunch of notes and skip all over the place, but in the end retain only a couple grooves out of all that commotion. A great example of this would be Horace Silver. This guy was KING at creating phrases. Even in his solos which contain more notes than usual, he always ties it in into a catchy, hummable, and most importantly SWINGING phrase. Real toe tappin head noddin stuff. | |
| Styles -- 07/05/2005, 13:44:37 -- #16164 | |
| Nice visualization I can attest to this being a semi bebopper. I can play a bunch of notes and skip all over the place, but in the end retain only a couple grooves out of all that commotion. A great example of this would be Horace Silver. This guy was KING at creating phrases. Even in his solos which contain more notes than usual, he always ties it in into a catchy, hummable, and most importantly SWINGING phrase. Real toe tappin head noddin stuff. | |
| Scot -- 07/06/2005, 09:33:08 -- #16219 | |
| Every tuesday I run a jam session, and that happened last night. The entire night I was thinking about the parade of ideas, going slowly across, giving everyone a chance to see them and experience them before moving on. Well, it works. The audience response was amazing, the cats in the room asked what happened over the weekend to play like that, and since it was a bit less chaotic than my normal playing (I try not to be chaotic, but you know, you get caught up in things) even the rhythm section had a chance to jump on the parade. Apart from the fact that I could barely think straight from over, ah, indulgance on what feels like a very long 4th of july weekend, it was a great night. | |
| sdm -- 07/06/2005, 10:18:22 -- #16222 | |
| Hmm, maybe it was really the, uh, altered state theory put for by -- was it Whack. | |
| sdm -- 07/06/2005, 10:20:01 -- #16223 | |
| Oops, sorry for the misattribution -- it was 7. | |
| Scot -- 07/06/2005, 20:04:34 -- #16238 | |
| What theory was that? | |
| sdm -- 07/07/2005, 09:57:40 -- #16256 | |
| Check out #15928 in the in the recent sight reading thread :). | |
| Guillaume_Haydn -- 07/08/2005, 22:37:31 -- #16307 | |
| Brilliant visualization, Scot! Thank you, can I use it for lessons? - It's what I tell my students each and every lesson: Play less notes, create motifs, then variations and let inner humming help you, let there be a thread and a slur. | |
| signal11 -- 07/09/2005, 05:18:15 -- #16309 | |
| I think everyone ought to run out and get Ahmad Jamal's "Live at the Pershing" album. This is probably the most perfect example of Scot's "parade" idea that I can think of. When I first heard this, it completely changed my whole concept of how I might approach solos. Great stuff. | |
| Scot -- 07/09/2005, 09:52:28 -- #16322 | |
| Of course you can use it to teach! Yeah, Ahmad Jamal definitely has that mindset. In fact, when the first set was finished at the jam session last week (first set is always just a trio set) someone came up and said it sounded a lot like an Ahmad Jamal set. Sometimes I think Amhad Jamal is tad bit more arranged in his stuff than I would like, but it's always great stuff. | |
| sdm -- 07/09/2005, 12:37:22 -- #16331 | |
| I have to say, Scot, that I was skeptical for myself because if my limited skills at this point. Now, however, I find myself thinking about this as I play and it is beginning to have some effect on what I play. Amazing such a simple idea would hold so much power but isn’t that always the way! Thanks for this. | |
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